Broken :(

Well,

I was home yesterday during lunch eating when I heard a loud bang. I thought it came from the fish tank but, I did not see any dammage at first. I woke up this morning to fins my Zoa cluster in the sand from a snail I think. I went to open my top to place him back on his rock to find that my glass top had cracked right down the center.
(I think the light heat did it)

My question is this, Do I need to run a top? I have a small dog I keep inthe house and the only thing I am worried about is dog hair getting in the tank, Fish jumping out and water evaporation.

What is the best thing to do? Should I have another one made? Sould I just say &%^$ it and leave the top off?


TIA

Beamerhack

 

Hello, tank lids are good for all the reasons you stated - they are also bad since they prohibit oxygen exchange and you tank actually needs to de-gas. lids are a preference item.

I have three glass lids on my tank and an open sump and refugium in my basement. I keep the lids since I have plenty of open water space elsewhere for the gas exchange. But I can also say that I get plenty of dog/cat hair in the tank and it doesn’t seem to hurt a thing.

 

Crimson Ghost brought up a great point! Two other things that are a negative in using a top is that water temp will usually rise, plus the amount of available light to your animals below is reduced and with salt creep will be reduced even more! I never use a glass top on my tanks!

 

Hi, for the reasons you mentioned (and some you didn't) I would leave them on. I never heard of them breaking from heat produced by light so my thought is you have the lights laying almost directly on the glass. I would raise them up with mounting legs if possible. If you are unsure of how to mount, let us know what lights you have.
I think more troubling and still unanswered is why the Coral fell. Seems unlikely to me the breaking glass created that much energy to move a rock unless it was very small.

 

I don't run covers on saltwater tank because of gas exchange.

 

I used to have a cover on my tank, coral looked ok and what not but after I took the top off boom! they looks a heck of a lot better...My power heads catch all my cat hair!

 

I think my huge turbo snail knocked the coral off not the breaking of the glass. It was on it right before I went to bed.

I am thinking of just removing it and running the legs that came with the light.

 

I beleive it, the build up of gasses are not good. the tank requires a fresh supply of oxygen across the water surface. I use lides on my display (I have a 2 1/2 foor zebra eel - sort of mandatory). I have a 55 gallon sump in the basement that I crash the water into as well as a fuge for the exchange.

Lids have benefits, but I don't think the pro's out weigh the cons - but opinions vary, bottom line I suppose is it's your tank set it up your way and enjoy.

 

I kept having low pH problems (because of gas exchange) before I removed my glass top. I'll never use one again, everything seems so much happier now.

 

Just for thought.....a good skimmer and properly set up sump provide oxygenated water and gas exchange.